July 30, 2022, marks the 136th birth anniversary of the Founder of the Cancer Institute (WIA), Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy. As a faculty member of the Institute, I reflect on the stories of this resilient and indomitable changemaker in the field of oncology in India. Through her learnings as the first woman legislator of the erstwhile Madras Presidency and as the Founder of the Avvai Home, Dr. Reddy built up a wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge that played an important role in the establishment of the Cancer Institute along with the Women’s Indian Association (WIA). Dr. Reddy was the first secretary of the WIA and later became its Life President.
Dr. Reddy made several appeals to set up a specialized cancer centre in the city of Madras. Among the several appeals, the most noteworthy was an appeal made to the members of the King George V Memorial Fund Committee in 1935 driven by her on behalf of several Women’s Associations in the city of Madras, including the WIA, the Madras Presidency Muslim Ladies’ Association, Sri Sarada Ladies’ Union, the Young Women’s Christian Association, and the Madras branch of the All-India Women’s Conference. Dr. Reddy always regarded the value of collaboration across disciplines to help achieve her goals and dreams. Through these appeals, Dr. Reddy expressed the importance of setting up a specialized cancer centre equipped with modern infrastructure to establish training and research activities for the prevention and treatment of cancer. Along with the WIA, Dr. Reddy was able to setup the Women’s Indian Association Cancer Relief Fund; her untiring efforts in making appeals continued to be presented to relevant Ministries in power until the hospital was first setup in 1954.
Dr. Reddy helped set up several social welfare programs, especially for women and children. With every task that Dr. Reddy undertook, she took another step towardsa future that would be free of the fallacies and inefficienciesshe encountered constantly.
